James R | On 26, Jan 2016

We review the best TV shows and films currently available on BBC iPlayer. (Click here to skip to our review of the best movies on BBC iPlayer.)

Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur

There’s nothing like David Attenborough standing in front of a pack of wild animals talking serenely about their lives and habitat. When it comes to dinosaurs, though, that’s not really possible. The result is an old man standing in front of a CGI titanosaur (the largest animal ever to walk the earth), pretending to see something and looking amazed. Fortunately, that bizarre sight – akin to your clueless uncle trying to work a VCR – only occurs rarely in this fascinating programme, which sees old Dave turn his attentions more to fossils than live species. Instead, the series gives other people the chance to be the expert on-screen explaining things to him – another reversal of the usual Attenborough format, which reveals just how good a presenter Attenborough really is, and just how much he (and his younger self) loves dinosaurs. It’s an infectious sentiment.

Available until: 25th February

Photo: BBC/Graphics by Hello Charlie

Mary Berry’s Foolproof Cooking

Lobster. Spiralised veg. It’s endearing to see what Mary Berry thinks are the foodstuffs people use to impress friends in 2016, but if the menu for this new cookery show is a little outdated, that’s precisely Mary’s charm: delivering everything with the gentle enthusiasm of everyone’s favourite grandma, she trills through recipes without ever taking herself too seriously or forgetting that ingredients can sometimes be expensive. Compared to any other chef on telly today, she’s a refreshing palette cleanser – and her food, including the lobster, looks gorgeous to boot.

Available until: 26th February

Photo: BBC/Shine TV

James May’s Cars of the People

With Top Gear no more – unless you’re an Amazon Prime Video customer – it would be easy to write off James May as an also-ran of the famed BBC trio, but returning for a second season of his solo series, he proves just how likeable he is. Chatting to us about the cars that turned post-war Germany and Japan into motoring powerhouses, he’s experienced enough to know how to recite facts without them being boring, but more than that, he’s also an adept interviewer, spending several minutes humiliating the designer of the Austin Allegro without it ever feeling cruel. Jeremy Clarkson would never have been able to do that.

Available until: 25th February

Photo: BBC/Will Churchill

The Rack Pack

BBC iPlayer’s first scripted original drama follows the rise of snooker in the 1980s, as a young Steve Davis faces a heated rivalry with Alex “Hurricane” Higgins. Snooker may not be the most exciting or mainstream sport, but the film understands that it’s about people as much as potting – and Will Merrick as Davis and Luke Treadaway as Higgins are uncannily good, one hilariously awkward and the other tragically self-destructive. Together with business guru Barry Hearn (a brilliant Kevin Bishop) crafting a new, professional era for the sport, The Rack Pack is a moving tribute to a bygone sporting age and a legend who simply wouldn’t exist today. The result is something everyone should go snooker loopy over, whether they’re fans of the sport or not. Read our full review.

Photo: BBC / Zeppotron / Keiron McCarron

Stargazing Live: The Spacewalk

How wonderful it is that the BBC has a format so perfectly calibrated for live science broadcasts as Stargazing. Here, the show returns for a week of programming surrounding – you guessed – Tim Peake and the ISS. This climactic episode, featuring his called-off spacewalk on the outside of the space station, is smartly cut with an insightful discussion involving ISS veteran Chris Hadfield and a tense look back at one almost-fatal spacewalk years ago. The result is as gripping as Gravity and, thanks to the presenting of Dara O Briain and Brian Cox, as fun as educational TV gets.

Available until: 14th February

Photo: BBC / Andrew Hayes-Watkins

Shetland

“The location is like an extra character…” people love to say of TV shows and films, but in Shetland’s case, it really is true: as much as DI Jimmy Perez’s investigation into a young man disappearing on a ferry crossing is absorbing enough, the crime drama’s setting of the remote Scottish islands adds a wonderfully grim, beautiful mood that might be the closest the UK gets to the feel of Scandinavian telly.

Available until: 14th February

Photo: BBC/ITV Studios/Mark Mainz

Bad Dads’ Army: The Hatton Garden Heist

Impressively put together just after the court verdict last week, this BBC Three docudrama re-enacts how a gang nearly pulled off Easter 2015’s £14 million record-breaking heist. Is it accurate? Possibly. Is it gripping? Occasionally. Does Danny Dyer narrating, saying phrases like “a classic case of cops and robbers”, make it more entertaining? Absolutely.

Available until: 13th February

David Bowie: Five Years

Following the sad news that David Bowie had passed away, BBC Two decided to re-screen this documentary on 11th January, portraying the career of the iconic pop legend. Inspiring, bold and chameleonic, Bowie’s contribution to music – and influence upon it – is timeless, but this 2013 film (originally broadcast after his surprise release of the album The Next Day) portrays it by focusing on five key years in his life. The interviews with collaborators are insightful, but the unseen archive footage is a treat, ranging from talk show appearances to him in The Elephant Man on Broadway. Can any programme do justice to all of David Bowie’s remarkable talent within 90 minutes? No, but this is as close as it gets.

Read our tribute to David Bowie here.

Available until: 11th February

War and Peace

Andrew Davies begins the almost Herculean task of abridging Tolstoy’s literary classic into six hours of television with an impressively zippy first opening, which introduces us to 19th century Russia, as the country is drawn into war with France – and young idealist (and illegitimate son) Pierre Bezukhov finds himself the unexpected heir to his father’s wealth. Paul Dano is excellent as the hot-headed male, a nervy counterpart to the suave Prince Andrei, who wants to use the war to escape his wife. and a potential partner for the equally earnest Natasha Rostova (Lily James). But if the juggling of subplots works, something doesn’t ring true, as the English-speaking cast and period costumes feel more like Jane Austen than Russia.

Available until: 2nd February 2016 (Episode 1)

Photo: BBC/Mitch Jenkins

EastEnders: Back to Ours

EastEnders continues its iPlayer-exclusive take on the Gogglebox format with Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright watching back moments of their screen history on the soap opera on a sofa. The behind-the-scenes tidbits are interesting for loyal fans, while the observations and anecdotes of how the series has helped viewers consider issues such as homosexuality are sweet – but really, this is worth watching for the fascinating insight it provides into Danny Dyer’s perception of himself. Joking about people not wanting autographs and talking about how he’s forced his way into people’s living rooms and escaped the bargain bin DVD circuit, it’s impossible to tell how self-aware he is – but he certainly puts in an impressive performance in the clips we see. (They don’t show the bit where he talks to a goose.)

Available until: 31st January

Photo: EastEnders’ New Year’s Day episode (BBC/Jack Barnes)

Sherlock Holmes: The Abominable Bride

Sherlock is back – but not as we know him. Yes, this Christmas special is the much-anticipated old-school outing, which rewinds the clock to 1895. Martin Freeman’s John Watson is now a veteran of the second Afghan war. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes wears a top hat. Some things, though, never change. “Merry Christmas,” he abruptly wishes to Watson and his wife, then stops smiling. “Thank God that’s over.” Some may have a similar reaction this timey-wimey outing, which sees Steven Moffat retreat so far up his proverbial Mind Palace that any sense of real tension sadly dissipates. But even a flawed episode of Sherlock is still an entertaining one – and this teaser for Season 4 will certainly leave you wanting more. Read full review.

Available until: 31st January

And Then There Were None

Nothing says Christmas like a bit of murder – and nothing says murder on the telly like Agatha Christie. But this is 2015 and Christie’s heyday has long gone. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple have been adapted to death, masterfully so. Now, we look to Scandinavia for our serial killers. Gone are the cosy country houses of old. In their place, snowy landscapes, bloody warehouses and woolly jumpers. Luckily, the BBC got the memo: this new take on And Then There None is blacker than Sarah Lund’s boot polish. Turning the cosy tale into a psychological horror, this is a stylish adaptation with a stellar cast – including Aidan Turner, who might as well be auditioning to play the next James Bond. Read full review.

Available until: 26th January (Episode 2)

Dickensian

Marley wasn’t dead to begin with. Not yet, anyway. That’s because this isn’t A Christmas Carol: it’s Dickensian, the new series from Tony Jordan. It’s only fitting that the EastEnders veteran should cram as many of the author’s characters as possible into one big serial. There’s an undeniable pleasure in seeing Dickens’ well-known faces from the page collide on screen. Within minutes, we’ve met Fagin (Anton Lesser) and Scrooge (Ned Dennehy), not to mention a young Miss Havisham (Tuppence Middleton) and Little Nell. The main villain, though, is Marley – and Peter Firth gobbles up every second of screen-time he gets like the whole set is made of ham. Demanding money be collected from Little Nell’s family, even as she lays there dying, it’s no surprise that he winds up dead by the end of the first episode, a cliffhanger befitting of Dickens. It’s the perfect excuse for Bleak House’s Inspector Bucket (Stephen Rea) to stroll the streets between each novel and interrogate Charles’ creations. Rea is excellent, easily shouldering the responsibility of holding the thing together. Even if it only ends up as a game of Spot the Novel, what larks could be had here, Pip. What larks. Read full review.

Available until: 26th January (Episodes 3 and 4)

Matt Berry Does…

Matt Berry proves once again that almost anything he says is funny, mostly because of the way he says it. After several excellent comedy shorts for BBC iPlayer, the IT Crowd and Garth Marenghi star now has his own series of six iPlayer short films titled “Matt Berry Does…”. Father’s Day and Summer Holidays are the kind of arbitrary topics that get the absurdist treatment from him and Bob Mortimer – there’s something undeniably hilarious about Matt Berry’s voice playing on top of screaming fish – while Matt Berry Does… Ghosts, is another testament to how effective Berry’s silliness is when distilled down to one brief, concentrated dose. Especially if you like learning about ghosts called Kenneth. The final in the series is now available, Matt Berry Does… New Year.

Available until: June 2016

Photo: BBC iPlayer

Charlie Brooker’s 2015 Wipe

“You could be minding your own business in the middle of an everyday mass shooting and suddenly realise you’re in a terror attack.” The acerbic comedian is on fine form here, poring over 2015’s news headlines like acid seeping through a rice cracker. From politics to viral adverts, Brooker skewers it all with bitter hilarity – and a whole lot of pig jokes. It’s his contributors, though, who elevate this to something inspired, as Barry Shitpeas and Philomena Cunk tackle issues such as feminism and terrorism. So funny it’s depressing and so depressing there’s no choice but to laugh, UK TV is crying out for something of this calibre on a regular basis. Cunk, meanwhile, should have her own show.

Available until: 29th January

Luther

“I’m with the police.” “Which police?” “The police.” And just like that, Luther is back, with Idris Elba on blistering form. Since we last saw him – ditching his detective’s coat into the Thames to be with Alice (Ruth Wilson) – he’s been getting away from the grimy police work in a cottage on a cliff. “Close to the edge,” say his colleagues, when they inevitable come knocking. “Closer and closer every day,” he quips.

That on-the-nose dialogue could become cheesy and laughable in another cop show’s hands, but not Luther’s. Elba’s glowering performance pushes past the verge of parody into the heights of myth. Even his stubble is the stuff of legend. As soon as he switches his Jumper of Stereotype for his Coat of Badass, Loofah in on a determined mission to do one thing: solve a crime, and punch, assault or threaten as many people as possible to do it.

That bluntness seeps throughout the show’s style, so even the gory details become deliberately harsh. “What did he do with the heart?” “He ate it,” comes the reply. With a psycho running around East London and Alice apparently dead, there’s a thrill to this curt, concise story-telling, which is even restricting its narrative to two episodes to avoid any unnecessary fluff. Because let’s face it: if there were any, Loofah would just punch it in the face anyway. Gripping stuff.

Billionaire Boy

If Little Britain could be accused of childish humour, it’s only right that David Walliams should find a natural home in the world of kids’ entertainment – and this latest BBC adaptation of his best-selling books is testament to how likeable his family tales (this one involves the invention of a new toilet roll) are.

Available until: 31st January

Great Barrier Reef with David Attenborough

The only three words more exciting than “Great Barrier Reef”? “With David Attenborough”. The national treasure dives beneath the waves for yet another dazzling nature series.

Available until: 29th January (Episode 1)

Top Coppers

“Nobody messes with the McCrane family,” warns cockney crime boss Harry McCrane to his newly assembled henchmen. A hand goes up. “Yes, Sandra?” He’s just taken over an ice cream factory. The problem? They were already making a lot of money with the ice cream. Drugs, on the other hand, are a lot of hassle.

It’s exactly the kind of villain you can expect to encounter Top Coppers, BBC Three’s new comedy series. Created by Andy Kinnear and Cein McGillicuddy (also on directing duties), the show spoofs 1970s cop thrillers like it’s going out of fashion.

In many ways, of course, it is: comedies these days don’t do slapstick and silliness in the quite the same way. But the cast are more than up for it; Steen Raskopoulous is hilariously gormless as star cop John Mahogany and John Kearns is even more so as his sidekick, Mitch Rust. Both are dim, good at deadpan delivery and even more ginger than their names suggest. Their policing of Justice City, led by an amusingly over-the-top chief – the lover of another brother’s mother – recalls Police Squad! with its rapid-fire punchlines and constant undermining of every plot point. It’s not quite on a par with Frank Drebin, but three decades on, this wears the comparison on its sleeve with impressive attitude.

Available until: 28th January

Photo: BBC PICTURES/Rough Cut

Frank Skinner On Demand with…

BBC iPlayer’s latest original series sees Frank Skinner and an array of celebrity guests discuss – yes – iPlayer. Talking through their favourite things they’ve been watching recently, the result is like a 15-minute podcast presenting highlights from the catch-up service. A bit like our weekly column, but less comprehensive and with more famous people. Worth watching just to hear them discuss iPlayer’s original feature film Fear Itself and horror movies in general.

Available until: New episodes arrive every Friday – available for 7 days

Photo: BBC iPlayer

Music Box with Guy Garvey

The Elbow’s likeable frontman throws the curtains wide on a new music series exclusive to iPlayer, which sees Garvey share and discuss artists that he is most excited about. The series will run every other week for six episodes, with the first living up to its promise of introducing audiences to new music through its focus on Here We Go Magic. The exclusive premiere of the video for Falling – from their new album Be Small – is an apt coup, with Garvey providing the kind of amusing and insightful commentary that listeners to his Radio 6 Music show will be familiar with. Space for archive music from Radiohead brings diversity to the line-up, while the sub-30-minute runtime makes this an easy fit into your commute. Most impressive, though, is the BBC’s Playlister, which enables you to add tracks to a music playlist – a feature that, while not always relevant to the Beeb’s catch-up TV content, really comes into its own. Much like YouTube’s links to purchase audio from its videos, it’s the kind of innovative touch the BBC is good at – and could signal a strong future for IPlayer in the music VOD world. One day like this a fortnight will see us right.

Available until: June 2016

Photo: BBC / Dean Chalkley

Comedy Feeds

The BBC’s latest season of comedy pilots has arrived and it’s a consistently hilarious batch. Highlights include warped game show spoof Funz and Gamez, complete with depressed host and a production team that breaks into their contestants’ homes to steal prizes, and sketch show People Like Us, which just might be the best ensemble sketch programme since Big Train. Elsewhere, the return of a wayward daughter from university to her rural home is a delightfully original piece of comedy in an age where many sitcoms have become bland and familiar. These feeds should come with a warning – because they’ll leave you hungry for more. (Read our full review.)

Available until: June 2016.

Photo: BBC

My Jihad

As BBC iPlayer’s Original Drama Shorts return for another season, one of 2014’s best, My Jihad, returns as a miniseries of three 15-minute films. The first introduced us to Fahmida (Anjli Mohindra) and Nazir (Hamza Jeetooa), two single Muslims who crossed paths at an unsuccessful speed-dating night. Picking up events one month later, this is a universal exploration of love in modern Britain that packs in twice as much warmth and wit as most 30-minute shows do in a whole season. (Read our full review.)

Available until: 2016

Original Drama Shorts

BBC iPlayer continues to prove a platform for new talent with its latest bunch of shorts. From a moving demonstration of isolation and connection in an online age to a darkly funny – and unpredictable – story of female love and family loyalty, this is an impressively versatile collection of stories that are more than worth spending time with. (Read our full review.)

Available until: June 2016

Women Who Spit

“Your shabby, slipped-stitch mistakes make you miraculous,” spits Vanessa Kisuule in a short poem urging women to stop shrinking back and to take up space. It’s one of countless brilliant lines you’ll hear during this series of short films, which see female poets tackle topics facing young people today.

Cecilia Knapp’s explanation of why she writes is inspiring, Deanna Rodger’s look at those forced off the street is provocative, while Jemima Foxtrot’s double-performed examination of confidence and doubt is an entertaining and powerful reminder of the importance of self over surface. Each are excellent performers, leaving your tongue tripping back over syllables to savour their taste, but keep Megan Beech’s passionate cry for more women on our TV screens until last: after the previous four fantastic compositions, you’ll be hard pushed not to agree.

Important and urgent, this collection shows just how valuable BBC iPlayer can be as a platform to voices that should be heard more often.

Available until: May 2016

Photo: BBC/Thomas Caron Delion

 

Movies

Wallace and Gromit

Aardman’s animated duo are back in full force on BBC iPlayer, with the original three stop-motion shorts available, providing everything from cheese and cute robots and criminal penguins to mechanical dogs. A Matter of Loaf and Death until 27th and The Wrong Trousers until 29th January.

Available until: 29th January

The BFG

This animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, about a young orphan girl who meets a giant who creates dreams, is simply charming.

Available until: 29th January

Made in Dagenham

Sally Hawkins is superb in this winning tale of female factory workers fighting for equal pay. Given a 15 certificate because of its swearing, this is still worth considering as an option for younger teens, thanks to its uplifting true tale and inspiring example.

Available until: 30th January

Main photo: Kieron McCarron/Amanda Searle

Animal Farm

This animated adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel is as good as livestock-based political allegory gets.

Available until: 31st January

Creation

Paul Bettany plays Charles Darwin in this drama that follows the completion and publication of his theory of evolution – one that contravened his wife’s religious beliefs. Bettany is great, while his chemistry with an excellent Jennifer Connelly turns Darwin’s public controversy into a source of private conflict. An absorbing watch.

Available until: 19th February

 

Main photo: Kieron McCarron/Amanda Searle

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